Oracle
Trailer
Egg (@klickstein) sat down with Marquis (@marquis.pk) to chat about his history with parkour and the ins-and-outs behind the creation of Oracle.
Egg: I did some searching around, and the closest thing to a video from you I could find was your section in the toasty movie. Is it true you’ve never had a solo video before?
Marquis: Yeah this is my first! The closest you can get to seeing my older movement is just scrolling way back on my Insta, I haven’t deleted anything since I started. Sometimes I scroll all the way down and I’m like “woah I really couldn’t do a cast away.” I was doing flips before 2017, but that was the year I started going to PPK (Pinnacle Parkour Academy) — which was our parkour gym. That was the first time that I even knew what parkour was. I had no idea what a kong or a precision was before that. I was mostly just doing backflips.
Egg: How long were you doing flips for before you went to PPK and properly discovered parkour?
Marquis: Since middle school. I have very distinct memories of being in 6th grade and doing back handsprings and round off backflips. I’d say I started maybe around 5th grade and by 6th or 7th I was doing lots of grass tumbling. I just taught myself the basics like front, back, side… I think I even did a full before I went to PPK, but I didn’t know what a full was and I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew I was twisting and that I was upside down. I was at a point where I was getting pretty good at being upside down but was not very good at knowing what anything was called.
Egg: Could you trace back what made you want to start teaching yourself flips? Was there a particular moment?
Marquis: I have no idea what the actual inspiration was but I do remember the very first day I tried to do a backflip. I remember coming home from school, and for whatever reason I was super excited, maybe it was the last day of school or something, I was just excited about life. I came inside, I played with my dog, threw my backpack down and I went out to front lawn and just started trying shit. I was so excited that I just started jumping. I was just like “I think I could probably do a backflip” and I just started with like a shitty back handspring and eventually I was doing like the worst backflip you can imagine.
Egg: So you were just jumping for joy basically.
Marquis: Like actually, quite literally jumping for joy.
Egg: That’s such a cool backstory. How long after that moment did it take for you to realize you were really about it and wanted to keep doing flips?
Marquis: I have this really old video of me doing a round off Arabian in like 2016 and that was definitely from that in between stage where I wasn’t at PPK yet and wouldn’t have said that I did parkour, but was intermediately good at flips. I was just doing tons of frontflips off of stuff to grass and that was like my whole thing.
Egg: Were you playing more traditional sports at this point in time?
Marquis: Yeah I played more traditional sports pretty much all throughout my childhood, mainly football. I think that gave me a great physical baseline, just being an athlete. Football was great in particular because you’re just hitting the ground all the time. So I was just super okay with landing on grass with my entire body.
Egg: So once you started at PPK did you keep doing football for a bit, or was there like a point where you quit and were all in on parkour?
Marquis: Yeah, at that point, I was definitely all in. I had actually stopped football at that point. My dad’s a huge football fan, so he got me in it pretty young. I think I started playing football when I was like five, up until when I was like 12 or 13. It was just the craziest form of baby conditioning. I was just getting super athletic, and I didn’t even know it.
Egg: So once you were at PPK you were completely done with all traditional sports and parkour became your thing?
Marquis: Yeah. Football had been the main one that I did for a long time. I was more of a dabbler. I did track and field for like a year or two. I did baseball for like a single season, played basketball for like a year and a half, did swimming, did tennis. My mom was just very adamant about me being in shit, and I was always about it. PE was my favorite class. Like being physical and doing shit with my body has always been a hobby of mine.
Egg: So then, kind of continuing with the Marquis lore, once you started going to PPK how did things progress for you?
Marquis: Goodness gracious, I learned how to do a kong which became my favorite vault of all time. They taught me all the basics. Like, literally taught me what a precision was, and how to stick, the names of all the vaults. I learned pretty quickly, because, you know, I had eight great teachers and a great community. I was learning from, Chris, Rito, and Eli. It was pretty instant.
Egg: Once PPK closed how did things change for you? I’d love to hear more about the role of the Philly community on your growth in parkour.
Marquis: From 2017 to 2020 when we had PPK, it was awesome. I was going like once a week. I was, interning in there, which basically just meant I wasn’t getting paid, but it’s okay. I was just happy to be in a space that enabled me to progress. When it did close, I was lucky enough to have all my basics and be comfortable enough with flips and stuff that I could transition them outside pretty easily. I just started training outside with the rest of the Philly community. Chris, Ritto, and Eli, they really got me into more of the real parkour culture side of it, which I’m super grateful for. I feel like otherwise I would probably treat training so differently.
Egg: What was it like moving hours from the city to go to college?
Marquis: Its been interesting. My school is probably the only college campus that has no good spots. It’s pretty sparse up here. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of the dailies where i’m just swinging on this one tree and that’s it. I mean, like, those are the spots that really push you and force you to be creative. So actually, I’m super grateful for that, and I think the effect its had on my training is very apparent in Oracle. A lot of the clips are at spots that most people would consider “non spots” which I don’t even really like to say, because I think that all spots are spots if you know how to train them correctly.
Egg: I’m gonna jump ahead in my questions, because you just touched on something I wanted to talk about, with spot selection in mind. I’ve known for a while that you have a really wide skill set. I feel like a lot of people in parkour tend to find a bit of a niche, but I feel like I can’t really define your niche. With that wide skill set in mind, I’m curious about what draws you to a particular challenge or spot or line. How you do you pick out what you want to do with a particular session?
Marquis: I think it definitely depends on what the context is. In terms of filming, I think it’s more aesthetic and spot selection. I think it’s like, “wow this spot totally fits the aesthetic of the video that we’re shooting.” And so I want to highlight the spot by dancing on it. I think that in a context of just training, a lot of times my brain sees a particular challenge, and then I’ll just build from there. Definitely, in terms of the video, it’s more about how a spot looks. One of the big things in this video is that I really wanted all of the clips to be filmed on just concrete. I think there’s like two clips I can think of that have some grass or dirt, but for the most part everything is filmed on concrete. Some people do really hard moves throughout their training, but they mostly train in gyms or on grass and stuff. There’s just something about concrete that I feel like adds something to the movement, to the visual aspect of your movement.
Egg: So you’re kind of outlining that filming for this project and your typical day to day training look pretty different?
Marquis: In spot selection, yes, but movement wise not particularly, no. I think it’s definitely different in terms of like wether I’m doing a certain move because it will look good from a particular angle, versus, doing it because its how I want to use the spot. For the video, it’s kind of both. Like, a lot of times we would find a feature that was interesting. Like, “Oh, I like the way this sticks out here, and I can use my foot placement on that.”
Egg: Getting more into the filming process, what it was like working with Manor?
Marquis: Oh my gosh. First and foremost, shout out Manor, goodness gracious. Great people. Noah, Naomi, Connor, Yaron, and Ethan of course. Super, super talented people all around. Very first session, I remember feeling so stressed. Noah was somebody in particular that I really looked up to. I was just like, “wow there’s no way this is who’s filming my video, this is insane.” And then Connor, who I hadn’t heard as much about at the time of starting to film but I had seen a few clips from his dailies, and I was like, “Holy fuck, this guy is insane.” I felt like that was the level they were expecting, which totally wasn’t true and wasn’t their expectation. But I felt like that was something I had put it on myself. I was like “okay I really gotta ball out. Gotta go hard for this.”
The first day filming I was trying this front half pre pop Arabian off of this rock and I totally smashed my shin. I’m honestly super glad that happened, because it totally changed my perspective on the project. I was like, “okay, I don’t have to do the hardest thing I can do.” I just wanted to be more particular about picking spots that fit the vision. And honestly just how they reacted to that bail really set the tone for the rest of filming. They weren’t pushing me, or like forcing me to do anything, they were just being super helpful.
Getting deeper into it, feel like we really found a groove and a rhythm and a chemistry. It’s different filming with each of them. Working with Connor on a shot, versus working with Noah on a shot, or Ethan on a shot, are totally different experiences. Connor’s super good at seeing a feature, and I feel like that really helped me hone in on a lot of the line building. Like he would point out a feature that I didn’t see or something, and I’d be like “Okay, I could totally do something off of that ,with this, connect that here,” and then everything would fit together. Noah, was kind of the opposite, where I would have something together, and then Noah would be like, “Oh, but what if you did that on this instead?” He’d kind of raise the bar a bit. And honestly, all of them together. For a lot of the shots, we had at least two angles, most of the time three filmers, and for one particular filming session we did have all four of them and that was pretty fucking awesome.
Egg: So cool to hear more about all of that. The video itself does feel really collaborative. It’s interesting hearing about how not just in filming, but in your line building and your spot selection it was a team effort.
Marquis: Literally. Last summer there was a point where I was staying at Chris and Ritto’s house with all the Manor guys, and we’d just wake up from the dungeon, as you know, and just go out and walk around. We might pick a particular area, but we wouldn’t really pick a particular spot. I would say maybe 80% of the video was like we found a spot, and I made a line in the moment at that spot. There’s definitely some input from someone on most of the lines. Sometimes they’d point something out then I ran with it. Other times I’d find a spot and I’d look to them to help get some ideas of how to use it or how to connect something. So it was definitely like, just everyone’s brains all together.
Egg: So lovely to hear. Another thing I wanted to ask about was all of the night clips in the project. What do you like about training at night?
Marquis: The night clips are actually a little bit of a running joke. We started filming for this in April of 23 so it’s been a good little second. When we started there wasn’t a super clear direction. So we would go out and, and sometimes we’d just be out all day. We’d have so much more energy and so much more time, we just wouldn’t stop. I would get a day clip, and then we’d keep filming for the next like five hours and get like, two night clips. So the ratio was never gonna be even. Also just working during the summer it was pretty tough to get out and get those day clips. A lot of times we weren’t getting out there until like 4 or 5. So by time we roamed around, found a spot, created the line, it would start getting dark. There are a good handful of clips that started as day clips and did not get accomplished until it became a night clip. Honestly, I am not mad at it. I think it actually serves the video and the aesthetic really well.
One thing that was intentional was the jazz for the background music. That’s something Ethan and I had talked about maybe a little less than a year into it. I think that was the first time I really thought about a direction for the video. I definitely wanted it to be super jazzy. I just love jazz. It’s my favorite kind of music. It does something intrinsically awesome for my soul. I also just feel like, every time I see parkour, it’s to this backdrop of just, like, BANANANA just like super hardcore music. And while that’s super sick and parkour definitely can be really intense and powerful, I think my movement in particular is already very powerful, and I didn’t want the music to be trying to make the movement seem more powerful. I wanted the movement to look and feel powerful on its own, and I wanted the music to come in and make it feel artistic and beautiful and flow together. And that’s where the jazz comes in. I hope I answered your question I completely forgot what the question was.
Egg: No, you did, it was about night filming. I feel like I see the connection there with the night footage matching quite well with the jazz. In particular I love that little interlude with the bus driver.
Marquis: That interlude is literally just a part of that song, I thought Ethan, like, added that on top or something. It’s literally just part of the song, and it’s so so good. It’s so awesome. Ethan compiled all the music. I gave him the outline, and he just ran with it. I had to have Ethan send me all the soundtracks, because I wanted to just listen to it all day. So many songs in parkour videos are not really my style or the type of thing I’d want to listen to throughout my day, even if they serve the video well. I listen to jazz like every day, when I’m chilling, when I’m walking, when I’m in the gym, when I’m training, like, all the time. I listen to other stuff too but there is no occasion where I wouldn’t be down to listen to some jazz.
Egg: One shot I would love to hear about what went down behind the scenes was the plyo over the subway station.
Marquis: The subway scene was a really special one for me. That station was just where I would get on and off to go to work every day. So I would see the subway station every day, and I would look at it, and I’d be like “I can totally jump this gap”. It was just one of those things where you see it and you just know. It was perfect, because at a lot of the stations on that train line, all the middle pieces are like, either angled or there just wasn’t a landing platform. But that one was perfect. I really wanted it in the video, because its somewhere you wouldn’t typically go train. Filming it was pretty cool. I would say that Noah and Connor got their hands pretty dirty to get that shot. Noah was literally down in the subway track, just chilling out. Connor got so many good pictures from that shot. Shooting that took so long because we were trying to coordinate it with the train passing by. I think in one of the shots we did get it, just not in as close succession as we were looking for. We also had to make sure everyone, like, didn’t die. It just took a long time because we kept waiting for the train. There’s one shot in particular that I hope people realize what happened there. There’s a shot where I’m jumping through the track and the cameras pulling away, and that’s actually just Naomi on the train shooting out the back window. That was pretty funny, because she would just end up at next station down the line and had come back up for each take. I’m glad we got it done, and I feel like the shots we got out of it look so so good.
Egg: That shot from Naomi is one of my favorites in the whole project. I also wanted to ask about the monstrous drop pre toward the very end, that shit was just unreal. I had heard rumor of this clip prior to seeing the video. Someone was like “its literally the biggest drop pre” and somehow it still surprised me.
Marquis: I’m so glad. Cameras tend to always make everything look smaller. But when you’re standing up there it looks really really far. I’m glad that it, you know, looked as grand as it felt. That was a challenge that I had seen for years and never really thought of seriously. I think going back to an earlier question, where you were talking about filming for video, versus everyday training. Like, I’m not doing that just training. I don’t have a desire to do that or to feel that in my body on a regular basis. Normally I can do parkour and not care about it being witnessed. I’ve had many a session where I don’t even record, I’m just training for the feeling. For this challenge it wasn’t just for the feeling, it also just felt like it needed to be done. That’s a challenge that we had seen for years. The thing about Philly is that you see all the same spots. It’s a big city, and there’s definitely a lot that we haven’t tapped into, but the main areas are the main areas, and we’ve seen them. And so that jump has been theorized about for a long, long time, and I’m glad to be the one to hit it. It was just really what I wanted for this video. I wanted something with some scale and some grandeur.
Egg: Speaking of scale and grandeur, I’d love to hear the process behind your ender.
Marquis: That Ender… holy fuck. I found that ender back in October of 23. What I first spotted didn’t even end up being the final product. There’s a setup right next to it with a flat wall to push off of, as opposed to the pillar. That’s where I was going to do it but Noah had the idea for me to do it off the pillar instead, where there’s more risk and a harder surface to push off of. In my heart I was like, yeah, if you’re gonna do it, you might as well fucking do it. If you’re gonna push yourself, then push yourself to the limit. Don’t push yourself to 85% you know.
It was definitely a super big mental and physical battle. The time that we got it was not the fifth attempt, but the fifth session of us going to that spot and trying to get it done. There were many, many, many attempts at trying to make it happen. The first days were mostly just me not feeling consistent enough to send it. I had done this combo before so I knew I could do it, but I’d never pushed it to that level of risk. I knew I could do it, but it was about making my body do it and feeling confident. Putting in the reps to make sure I could hit it and not die. Not that I would die, but I think I’d at least get a heel bruise or maybe a fracture if I fell weird. I think the first four times we went were four days in a row because it was at the end of the Manor crew being in town for that particular trip. The first two days I would just do prep after prep after prep at ground level but when I got up there it just felt so much scarier than how I thought it would be. It was definitely super overwhelming and I really didn’t know if I could commit to it. I’m really glad that we took our time with it. One time we came back and I finally felt ready to do it but then we got kicked out before I could. It was just always something. I think on the fourth day I committed to the first part. But then obviously the connection was a whole other challenge to overcome. I think the connection is really the actual trick there. I think either move by themselves wouldn’t be anywhere close to as hard. That connection at that height was where I was struggling the most.
The front flip was actually way easier for me. Front precision, like on a line like that was one of the things that I very specifically remember learning at PPK. We had this, wooden straight line thing I learned them on, so I have been doing those since like 2017. I also feel pretty confident about my backflip pres, but palm flip, you know, there’s just another apparatus there. There’s just something else to shift your direction or to move you off course. Then obviously the connection of having the momentum coming forward and being upside down and trying to stray straight from that first set. If you mess up the first set, the second sets gonna also be fucked. So, yeah just holding in for that connection there was super, super hard, but super rewarding once I got it. There was an attempt before the make, where I get the connection, but I land like hands and feet from the palmflip. I feel like, when something like that happens, you have one of two reactions. It’s either like I’m scared because it didn’t go perfect and I could have fell there, or I can be super happy that it went all right for the most part. That’s where I was at. As soon as I got over my head and stayed on the beam, I knew that I was gonna be okay. If I can under rotate it this bad and not fall off I know I’ve got it.
Egg: Yeah, like you were saying it’s that, crux transition part. Anytime I’m doing any sort of flip pre at height I take like 30 seconds to make tiny foot adjustments to make sure I feel perfectly centered, perfectly aligned.You don’t have that luxury in the middle of a combo like this.
Marquis: Yeah, it’s definitely really scary. Something else that messed with me that you can see if you slow it down, was that my feet actually come up to the left side of the pillar, which you’d think would make me land off center. With that tech all the preps were lining up consistently but it was definitely stressful. I was super happy to get it as you can see in the clip. Finally getting it done was such a weird feeling because it had been at the forefront of my mind for so long. It had been such a rollercoaster. I remember feeling so defeated when I didn’t get it on that 4th day in a row of trying to get it done. That was at New Year’s, and then I think they came back in, like, March or April. So a whole season had gone by, and I had just been thinking about it every day. Feeling disappointed, kind of feeling defeated, but also kind of just feeling determined to get it.
Egg: Anything else before we sign off?
Marquis: I mean I’m just so happy to accomplish this video. Like you said, it’s my first piece, so I definitely just wanted to make it impactful but artistic. I’m happy that I got to do it with the people who I got to do it with. I feel like Manor really pushed me. Eternally grateful for that. I’m already looking to do another project, already looking to try to one up myself. I feel like you always look back at the clips and think “Oh, I could do this even better. I could do that so much cleaner”. But I think I’m at a place where I’m actually just super happy with how it came out. Not sacrificing or compromising on anything. Everything is exactly how we wanted it.